How ‘Bout a 15-Minute Dinner Using 4 Ingredients?
Jamie Oliver and his 15-minute meals are so inspiring! I’ve done it and you can too. Fish is the quickest protein of all to cook. It’s also really easy but yet I’ve been ‘too scared’ of cooking fish, thinking it’s too hard to get right or it’s too easy to ruin. Not so! Below is a simple recipe – if you could even call it a recipe – for a quick salmon stir fry that I made recently for dinner and it literally only uses 4 ingredients. Would you even call the 1 tablespoon of cooking oil, an ingredient?
There’s another brilliant and quick way to cook fish that I can tell you about and I got the idea from my local fishmonger who is a genius with his suggestions. I was telling him how I don’t cook fish too often because I worry that I’ll ruin it and it’ll be too dry. His answer? An oven bag (the kind you would use for a roast chicken)! He said you can put other ingredients in with it for flavour and it was almost like a little cartoon lightbulb clicked on above my head! I purchased a nice piece of barramundi and some oven bags and was excited to get home and try it for dinner.
When I got home, I added a spoonful of Latasha’s Singapore Curry Laksa Paste to the plastic bag the barramundi came in and smooshed it around to coat the fish all over. Then I transferred the fish to the oven bag, cut a couple of tiny holes in it (as per the instructions) and put it in the preheated oven. The result was a succulent, flavoursome, moist piece of fish … and zero mess!
Without having to fry the fish, there was no messy stove, no oily pan and really, the only oil in the bag was what was in the fish anyway, i.e. not much. While it was cooking, I whipped up an easy salad of rocket, grated carrot and beetroot, and I even sliced up a pear that was looking a little forlorn in the fruit bowl. I dressed it all with lemon juice and olive oil and it was lush.
How to make meal prep more enjoyable
We need to stop stressing about what’s for dinner because it all seems too hard. We deserve good, tasty, healthy meals and we deserve to enjoy the process of preparing them. Put on some music and chop to the beat. Light a fragrant candle and turn the lights down a bit. Talk to someone you love on the phone while you cook or even better, Facetime or Facebook video chat with them and you can share the fun with visuals too.
Don’t save your fish intake for greasy fish and chips from the corner shop. Fish is easy to cook! And its delicate flavour lends itself beautifully to enhancement thanks to Latasha’s Kitchen curry pastes.
Quick Salmon Stir Fry
My quick salmon stir fry is a wonderful balance of healthy vegetables and omega-3-rich salmon. Though those ingredients on their own can be bland, Latasha’s Green Coriander Sauce gives everything a lift with barely any additional effort.
(When I cooked this, I made it for one as shown in the pictures but the recipe below shows quantities for two.)
Ingredients (Serves 2)
- 1 tbsp cooking oil (I use olive oil)
- 2 cups frozen stir fry vegetables
- 1 tbsp Latasha’s Kitchen Green Coriander Sauce
- 300 g diced salmon
Method
- Heat a pan and add cooking oil. Fry stir fry vegetables until defrosted.
- Add Latasha’s Kitchen Green Coriander Sauce and fry to release aromas. Stir through to coat vegetables.
- Add salmon and toss through vegetables, allowing fish to cook on all sides.
- When all ingredients are nicely caramelised, turn out on to a plate.
- Garnish with fresh coriander if desired.
Variation: Serve with steamed rice or quinoa. If you like a little sweetness, add some diced pineapple when cooking.
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